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Radial Entertainment Completes Purchase of ‘MST3K’Joel Hodgson’s Alternaversal has sold its stake in MST3K to Radial Entertainment, the entertainment company formed from the merger of Shout! Studios and FilmRise, giving Radial full ownership of the series. You can read more here.
9 Replies to “Radial Entertainment Completes Purchase of ‘MST3K’”Commenting at Satellite News
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Well, the good news is, these are the folks who’ve kept the fires burning since the Rhino Video days; when they say they’re fans themselves, that’s not just corporate PR, they’ve got the track record to back it up. Speaking purely in terms of personnel, it’s hard to think of a better group of people to keep the show in front of an audience and, hopefully, get together the resources to bring it back someday.
The bad news is, y’all MST3K just got bought by a private equity firm. I trust the folks at Shout Factory but I don’t trust their new bosses, who’ve already made significant cuts with short notice (I don’t think I got the e-mail notifying me that Shout’s store was being discontinued until after the site had already been taken down). Shout’s in a niche business, licensing cult shows and movies and still releasing them on physical media; they’ve clearly got a business that’s working for them and for us and I *hope* it works for their corporate owners, but when a private equity firm buys out a smaller company I always worry that they’re going to strip it for parts and leave an empty shell. I sure hope this time’s an exception and we’ve got MST3K for many years to come and even new stuff on the horizon; I guess we’ll see.
Joel sold the MST3K brand to a private equity firm?! Joel, all your jokes about ConGlomCo were based in reality. This is not going to end well.
Also, are the rest of the crew getting any money out of this, or were they screwed over? Again.
Could have been worse. Could have been Disney.
Huh. One of the co-owners of Oaktree Capital Management (the asset management firm that now owns MST3K) also owns the rights to the Beatles’ movies A Hard Day’s Night and Help. Isn’t that special…
I’m familiar with FilmRise. They own “The Dick Van Dyke Show” — a show that is as important to me as MST3K — and they treat it wih tender loving care. So I am cautiously optimistic.
Shout and Filmrise both have a proven track record doing right by a lot of beloved shows and movies. It’s not them I’m worried about, it’s their new corporate parent.
But hopefully Oaktree bought them because it recognized the value in the work they do, not just in the IP they own.
This news was a complete surprise to me. It was not welcome news.
Now one has to ask: Was the Shout! model of releasing niche shows on physical media still working? It’s been my experience that you don’t sell out to a private equity firm unless you are in need of a cash infusion.
Oh I hope I’m wrong.
I think at this point it’s like releasing music on vinyl: it’s become a niche, but that niche is dedicated and you can turn a profit if you’re savvy.
Clearly the new owner didn’t think Shout needed to have its own online store, though, and shut it down rather abruptly.
I severely miss new eps- we better get some new MST out of this. I hope they keep Jonah & Emily and all the same casts as well. Some of my fave eps of all time have been their eps.